Monday, 3 August 2015

A Buffoon for All Seasons

I expect I'm not alone in finding real-life horror in the fact that the ultimate 21st century buffoon, Donald Trump, is actually leading all other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. It is summertime, after all, not April Fool's Day.

The Daily Beast points out that Trump loves to compare himself to the ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum. But Trump's politics bear no comparison to those of Barnum, who served two terms in the Connecticut legislature and one as the mayor of Bridgeport.

Contrary to Trump, Barnum was not a reactionary, but an individual who supported Abraham Lincoln's nomination as a presidential candidate and welcomed an end to slavery. He in fact joined the Connecticut legislature so that he could ratify the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery. Later Barnum was also a supporter of the largely unpopular cause of female suffrage.

As the writer of the article states:

Clearly–Donald Trump take note–biography is not destiny; previous jobs
don’t determine political positions; and egotism need not trump
humanism. P.T. Barnum was as self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing as
Donald Trump, with an ego as monumental as any of Trump’s towers. But
Barnum the pol trumped Trump as a statesman, championing equality and
mutual respect.